Two Brothers Diverged in a Yellow Bathroom
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Heartache tag: Sam saved his life. Dean just wishes his brother still wanted to be a part of it, too.


**Two Brothers Diverged in a Yellow Bathroom**  
K Hanna Korossy

Trying to treat something you could only see in the mirror was a bitch.

Dean swore softly as he tucked his chin in, trying to eyeball the damage to his chest. Randa must've had the strength of her cocoa god, because the five points where she'd tried to dig the heart out of his chest by hand were all deeply bruised, skin and muscle split to nearly an inch deep. Like getting shallowly stabbed five times with a blunt blade. Good times.

He'd had worse, of course. Getting shredded by a hellhound tended to make any other injury seem like a bee sting. But it was still in a hard area to treat, and he really did need to clean out and bandage the wounds. Who knew what that skank had under her fingernails.

Dean poured some disinfectant onto the gauze pad he held—the first aid kit was so empty, they were down to drugstore supplies—and took a breath as he glared at his chest in the mirror. One of the wounds tore through the protection tattoo; he'd have to dig out the charms until it healed, or he got it re-inked. He'd start with that one. Right was left in the mirror but up was still up, so...there—

The knock on the bathroom door made his already shaky hand jerk, jamming the wet gauze into the topmost puncture wound.

Dean yelped, clamping his free hand onto the edge of the sink to steady himself. "What?!"

 _"You're cleaning up your chest, aren't you?"_ Sam said through the door, not even a question.

Not that there was a good answer. If he said no, Sam would rail at him for not taking care of himself. And if he said yes, Sam would be ticked that Dean was trying to do it himself. Either way he was screwed.

Unless...this, too, had changed since Dean had come back from Purgatory. As much as he tried to pretend things were good between them, they really weren't. Sam didn't want to hunt with him, hadn't bothered to try to find Dean when he'd disappeared, so why should he care if Dean's chest had a few more holes, or that he was trying to close said holes by himself?

Dean made a face at the mirror and growled out a "yeah."

Sam huffed—so loudly that Dean could hear it through the dingy lemon door—and announced, _"I'm coming in."_

Dean quickly jammed one booted foot against the door. "No, you're not."

 _"Dean..."_ Another exasperated sound; his brother had a large repertoire of them. _"It's too high up for you to see, just...let me help, okay?"_

He was prepared to hold out against any demands and patronizing, but the quiet plea dismantled his defenses. Grudgingly, he pulled his foot away.

Sam entered with caution, face surprisingly contrite, which further lowered Dean's hackles. The tension between them since his return had been nearly constant as Dean swung between anger and longing, while Sam seemed permanently parked on belligerence. Just standing before his brother shirtless and injured, something Dean had done a hundred times, felt uncomfortably vulnerable. But there was no hint of irritation or condescension as Sam nudged him toward the closed toilet seat and set to gathering supplies.

Two grown men in a motel bathroom were not an easy fit. They knocked legs a couple of times, but Sam seemed to be doing his best not to loom. He nodded for Dean to push up enough to slide a towel under him, and shoved another into his hands to hold in his lap. They worked without words, even the current disconnect between them not enough to erase thirty years of learning each other.

Sam worked carefully and gently, checking each wound to make sure no debris remained inside, then cleaning them with soap and water. "Clipped the tat," he murmured, and Dean hummed an agreement. If he closed his eyes, he could almost forget the last year happened, and he let himself indulge for a moment.

A jolt of pain had him knotting his hands in his jeans and panting through it.

"Sorry," Sam murmured, sounding like he meant it.

He needed a distraction, and his brother's sympathy opened a door. Dean cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about Brick." He'd always suspected Sam had been into the football hero more because it was something _normal_ than because he had such a love for the sport, but still.

Sam's hands didn't hesitate, and Dean could feel his shrug. "I didn't know much about the guy—I was pretty much just a fan of his playing. And he did the right thing in the end."

"Killing himself?" Dean said without thought.

That did gave Sam a moment's pause, but he quickly moved on to the next puncture wound. "Sacrificing himself to stop Cacao." His voice was too even; they were back on treacherous ground. They'd both sacrificed themselves in the past, and that usually meant leaving their brother behind. Usually a frantically searching brother.

Dean didn't want to go there now, not while, despite the pain of treatment, this was actually as comfortable as he'd been in a long time with Sam. He made himself relax, body and voice, and opened his eyes again to give Sam a hint of a smile. "You saved my bacon back there, dude. Thanks."

Sam rolled his eyes, but good-naturedly. They didn't usually thank each other, and especially not for that. He'd finished cleaning out the wounds—thank God—and had applied antibiotic cream. He was now threading a needle with dental floss, then dipping them both into a plastic cup full of rubbing alcohol. "We out of lidocaine?" Because stitches without a topical anesthetic were even less fun than cleaning out wounds.

Dean was careful to keep any hint of accusation from his voice. "Kit needs restocking."

Sam's gaze darted to meet his, then back down to his chest. "We can make a run tomorrow. Think I saw a clinic by the donut shop."

It was…well, not a whole branch, but at least an olive leaf. Dean took it gratefully. Then, because it was him, pushed a little more. "If I'd'a been there alone, I'd've been skewered."

Sam's jaw shifted; he'd picked up on the insinuation. "Hunting's dangerous, period, even in teams—you know that. That's why I want out."

The sharp jabs and tugs seemed to be in his chest, not just his skin. Dean bit down on the inside of his mouth and kept his eyes firmly on the curl of Sam's too-long hair against the buttery walls. He thought of the shapeshifter that had taunted him with Sam's face before Benny chopped its head off.

Of keeping count of jaundiced "days" in Purgatory, giving up when he passed two months without any sign of rescue.

Of rousing to what sounded like a baby crying—an attempt at a trap by a strix—and thinking in that half-moment between awake and sleep that Sammy needed a bottle.

Of the golden blood of that insect-looking thing that, swear to God, gave him a bitchy look worthy of Sam when Dean stabbed it.

Of Benny asking him about his little brother, taking one look at Dean's face, and changing the subject.

He was almost startled when Sam taped off the last square of gauze covering the stitches, eased the damp towel from Dean's hands, and stepped back. "Done," he said redundantly. "She get you anywhere else?"

"No place a fifth of Jack won't cure," Dean quipped back. The headache and all-over soreness was practically his normal state.

Sam nodded and packed supplies back into the kit with precise movements. It was too easy imagining those same hands doing handyman chores, or running lovingly through a girl's hair.  
Dean opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Hey…what happened to the dog?"

Sam went still for seconds before he finished what he was doing. "Riot stayed with Amelia."

 _Riot._ He wanted to razz Sam about the name but didn't, knowing it would come off wrong.

There was an odd feeling of regret as Sam opened the bathroom door, breaking open their little cocoon, an ephemeral bubble of old times, their old connection. Dean sank back onto the seat, tired and hurting.

Sam paused, hand on the doorknob, one foot in the bathroom and one foot out. He spoke without turning, low and earnest. "I missed you, you know. Jerk." The door was closing behind him before Dean could do more than look up.

He chewed his lip a moment, then pushed to his feet with effort to look in the mirror. Two squares of neatly taped gauze were the only signs left that a god had tried to rip his heart out of his chest. Or that his little brother had finished the job.

"Bitch," he said quietly to the empty room.

 **The End**


End file.
